


Thoughts

by SummerChilde



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/F, Ficlet, Light Angst, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:09:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29525523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SummerChilde/pseuds/SummerChilde
Summary: “Do you ever wonder whether you and I would have made it if you were a better person?”
Relationships: Azula/Ty Lee (Avatar)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 31
Collections: Quote Prompt Memes





	Thoughts

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [quoteonlyprompts](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/quoteonlyprompts) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> "To tell you the truth. At least once a day I think about whether you and I would've made it if I were a better person."

"God, you're impossibly selfish, Azula! Do you ever think about _anyone_ other than yourself?" 

As soon as the words leave her mouth, Ty Lee regrets them. Azula can see it in the way her brown eyes widen. She can read Ty Lee’s emotions like an open book as the girl bites on her lower lip, worrying it between her teeth.

Surely, Ty Lee thinks her words were too harsh. Surely, she thinks they were an undeserved blow. Azula knows she deserves all the harshness in the world and more.

In less than fifteen seconds, Ty Lee will open her mouth to try to apologize. She will try to take those words back. Pity. Azula had been looking for a reason to break them up anyway.

So, she does her usual thing. She goes into a lightning-induced rage, blue fire sparking at her fingertips. 

Azula screams words and harsh insults, throws them like Mai’s daggers at her oldest friend, and she watches. Azula watches as Ty Lee just stands there and _takes it_ before she breaks.

Tears leak out from Ty Lee’s eyes. Her shoulders shake as she unsuccessfully tries to muffle a sob. It’s beautiful and heartbreaking like a sunrise, shattered glass. 

_This is probably the only time in my life I will ever regret breaking something._ The realization hits her hard, knocks the breath out of her body. But what else can she do? It’s not like she ever learned how to keep something whole.

Ty Lee is so precious. She doesn’t deserve Azula.

A part of Azula hadn’t thought Ty Lee would actually leave. It had been a stupid, foolishly hopeful part of her, but a part of her nonetheless.

After all, hadn’t Ty Lee stood by Azula’s side since they were children barring that one incident with Mai? Hadn’t Ty Lee said, “I love you” – those three words you’re _never ever supposed to say to anyone if you want to be strong, Azula?_

But Ty Lee did leave, whispering one sentence on her way out to haunt Azula for the rest of the nights she’ll spend a prisoner in the old capital of her father’s empire.

“Do you ever wonder whether you and I would have made it if you were a better person?”

Three months later, in the dark of night, Azula admits it, to no one, to a ghost in her room. Still, it’s something, right? She hadn’t thought she’d even be able to say it aloud.

“To tell you the truth, at least once a day, I think about whether you and I would have made it if I were a better person.”


End file.
